Straight Out of Brooklyn: The Fall of Avery Johnson

_One of the most compelling stories in the NBA this season is the Brooklyn Nets. The franchise went all hip, moving from Jersey to Brooklyn; swung and missed on a deal for Dwight Howard; instead traded for one of the highest-paid players in the NBA; opened a new arena; commemorated the end of 2012 by firing their coach, Avery Johnson. New York-based writer Jake Appleman is spending this season shadowing the Nets, working on a book about their inaugural season in the borough. Jake will be checking in with the Nets throughout the season on GQ.com.

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It could have ended worse for Avery Johnson. He could have exited stage left, riding high over the Brooklyn Bridge on top of a hearse, and the experience wouldn’t have been completely new. In Johnson’s 2008 book Aspire Higher, a self-help sermon loaded with autobiographical anecdotes, he tells the story of hitching a ride on a hearse after he was late to practice while playing at New Mexico Junior College in Hobbs, New Mexico.

"As I sat there, where there’d been Lord-knows-how many caskets filled with dead people," Johnson wrote, "I thought, ’This is a message. Maybe this is not the school for you.’"

Lightly recruited out of high school, with time spent at three colleges, a summer in the USBL, 10 stints with 6 NBA teams, and two coaching jobs now in the rear-view mirror, such hearse-hopping resourcefulness will probably bode well for Johnson as he plots his next move. Fired mere weeks after being named Coach of the Month for November (he also won it in October), Johnson didn’t even have a losing record when he was let go (the Nets were 14-14). The first voice of the Brooklyn Nets came with an incomparable Louisiana accent, but the man behind the voice lost a power struggle. Hindered by the reality that he was in the final year of his contract, Johnson couldn’t get the contract extension he felt was necessary to solidify his future.

"When you don’t have that, then sometimes when things tend to go sideways, you just don’t have the full support," Johnson said of his expiring deal in his farewell press conference. "And if you don’t have the full support of ownership in a lot of different areas, for the most part it’s just not going to work."

In a city like New York, where controlling the conversation is of immense importance, Johnson tried very hard to steer the discourse in a way that could give him the best chance at survival. He did it in a way that reflected his disciplinarian persona, fairly or unfairly putting beat reporters on a pedestal, frequently speaking to each daily reporter as if nobody else was in the room. Johnson wasn’t trying to save print, but it sure seemed like it sometimes.

Johnson’s strategy made sound political sense. The people who were most likely to frequently reprint what he said were addressed personally while being provided the answers they reprinted. This fostered good relationships and probably, at times, subliminally led to favorable coverage. Noted for his controlling ways--some have said that Johnson hadn’t learned his lessons from his tenure in Dallas, where Dirk Nowitzki once referred to his regime as "a little dictatorship"—media shine was one thing Johnson could control.

Asked if he was concerned about his job on the day the Mayans predicted the world would end, a week before he was actually whacked, Johnson remarked: "Coach of the month, or ’the coach should be fired,’ whatever it is, it’s all fair."

His replacement, Nets Interim Coach P.J. Carlesimo, is vastly different, often specializing in humorously falling on his sword of self-deprecation in front of the entire room. In a league that features a popular rendition of coach-speak that mis misdirection with indifference, Carlesimo speaks truth to the reality that basketball is, first and foremost, a game.

When asked what he wanted to get from a meeting with Nets Owner Mikhail Prokhorov, ostensibly some update on his status, Carlesimo deadpanned: "a lunch." Carlesimo got his wish, and when the subject was followed up on following the lunch, Carlesimo mentioned the food ("the vegetables were incredible, the sliced zucchini...") before wistfully noting that he couldn’t drink wine because the meeting took place before a game.

Tony Parker said Carlesimo’s profane side was even funnier than that of Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich--and Popovich’s dry wit has elevated him to cult status amongst NBA diehards. "P.J. will create something like you’ve never heard before," Parker said of Carlesimo, a Spurs assistant from 2002-07. "He’s got nicknames for everybody. It’s funny."

Carlesimo mis this humor with an easily apparent serious side. "He’s definitely passionate and Avery was, too," Deron Williams said. "Avery was more reserved. I think he was more one to be even keeled on the bench and make sure that nobody...I don’t want to say see him sweat, but P.J.’s just one of those guys that’s just fiery and if he’s feeling the certain way, he’s going to tell."

So Carlesimo is a breath of a fresh air, as those following the inaugural season of the Brooklyn Nets wait to see if he sinks, swims, or watches Phil Jackson get hired.

Yet, losing the opportunity to have frequent extended conversations with Avery Johnson is like having Clear Channel remove the most unique sounding station from the FM dial. Now, any leftover Johnson impressions—and everyone has one—floating around the Barclays Center media room are tinged with sadness, because his sound had an enjoyable side and because he didn’t deserve to get fired, at least not based on his record.

We will miss Avery’s ability to address lineup changes with fastidious attention to detail, his consistent NFL metaphors, his profoundly pronounced head bob while fielding certain questions, and the nervous moments—when he couldn’t say something but we were all thinking it—that gave us all pause for laughter.

And then there was his quirky relationship with stats and math. Johnson spoke early in the season of his mysterious defensive rating (something he never elaborated on) and how he had his unique "Avery’s stats" to chart performance. He spoke in training camp of how plodding center Brook Lopez needed to focus on "attempted rebounds."

His love of specific numbers was also unique. When players on were on minute counts, they were given a leash of "plus or minus 2" the targeted goal. In Aspire Higher, he notes that Baton Rouge is 69 miles from New Orleans and that he rode 557 miles from Tucson to New Mexico with a hurt hip.

In training camp, when players were asked how long it took them to get to a practice at Barclays Center, those that lived in New York City uniformly used easily dividable numbers (5-10 minutes). Getting in from Jersey, Johnson said, took approximately 24 minutes. It sounded like his life in Tri-state traffic came with an expanded shot clock. Maybe between his lack of guaranteed authority and his deeply personalized habits, he was too different for some of his players.

"A coach can’t change people," Gregg Popovich said before the Spurs obliterated the Nets on New Year’s Eve. "They are who they are. No matter what team you’re talking about, a coach can be observant and try to put his team in situations both on and off the court where some of that can develop, some of the camaraderie sorts of things. But you can’t change people."

In exiting his final press conference after being fired, Johnson, for all of his I’m rubber, you’re glue survival skills, left me wondering if he could change. He finished by placating the media, especially his regulars.

"And I wanna thank all of you guys. I didn’t mention you by name, but Howard, Fred, Mike, Tim, Rod, all of you guys, and the ones that I missed, you know, uh, uh, sorry I missed your names, but everybody thank you for this opportunity and hopefully, I gave you guys more than what you needed."

The man who wasn’t given much of a chance to see Brooklyn through did it his way until his last moment leaving the job. Some of his players were easy fodder for published criticisms, while he never truly challenged others in the court of public opinion. For his side of the story to take on new life and new truth in the future, he’ll have to name names.